23/03/2026
It's Memory Monday!
This is the story I titled Escape from the Maw of the Beast 😳😆
The latest installment of Days of Our Sanctuary Manager's Life.
There's a couch on the verandah. You've probably seen it in photos, it's where the roosters hang out at night. I recently got rid of the old one and brought an unused one out of the back room that hasn't been touched in 10 years. It's relevant that this one is a sofa bed. One of those ones with the mechanisms inside that pull out to make a proper bed with an inner spring mattress.
Last night I was having a drink out there and noticed that I had mites crawling on me. Further investigation showed them to be the dreaded Red Mite.
These guys hide under perches or in tiny crevices in the day time and come out at night to chew on birds, leaving them anemic and uncomfortable. In a heavy infestation, birds will go sleep somewhere else, which chickens really hate to do.
So on to the story.
It was my day off today, with which I planned to do many things that didn't involve spraying the couch and the covers and pulling the bed out to do the mattress, I went ahead and did it anyway.
I got to the part where I had to pull the bed half way out, balance it, pull that part of the mattress back, and spray the mattress and base.
Alas, it was a trap!
Suddenly, the freaking bed swallowed me whole.
My head was inside the folded mattress, one arm was sticking out, and the opposite leg was out the other side.
Terry was trying to help by ferociously licking my foot.
I could hear turkeys laughing.
I'm sure Floyd said something but I couldn't hear it with my face being squashed by a carnivorous demon couch.
I thought I would probably die there.
And that's when I saw the mouse.
That's right, the mouse.
She was maybe 8 inches from my nose.
Her expression was exactly what I imagined mine to be at the time.
We both froze.
Eyes locked.
Each waiting for the other to make her move.
Neither having the courage to be first.
We stayed there staring at each other for exactly an eternity, me half way down the gullet of a couch, her probably hoping the couch would take its final gulp and I would disappear into the maw of the beast.
It was a standoff to end all standoffs. Like a great western gun fight, except without guns and at 8 inches rather than 10 paces.
And I've never seen a western with a violent carnivorous couch eating the cowboys.
So it was EVEN BETTER!!
Presumably coming to the conclusion that the couch was more deadly than the pitiful person it had trapped, the mouse turned tail and ran for her life, escaping both my clutches (I didn't have the chance to tell her I'm vegan) and the giant mouth of doom.
I fought, my friends.
I fought hard and long.
Like Gandalf fighting the firey beast in the Lord of the Rings, we tangled and spun into the black depths where no beast or human should go.
And I WAS VICTORIOUS!!!
Leaping from the beast's fierce clutches, I landed on my butt with an incredibly unhelpful dog choosing that moment to show his concern by licking my whole face, unbothered by the fact that I was trying to fill my lungs with sweet air rather than his smelly breath.
I leapt to my feet, hands in the air, and I screamed my scream of victory. All I needed was a Viking helmet for the scene to be perfect.
But I guess we can add that to the movie.
We will call it Escape from the Maw of the Beast, and the couch and I will both play ourselves, as no actor could possibly replicate the excitement of that moment.
I just need someone to play Terry, because he's not really very useful.
